I love coaching church planters. I’ve been doing it for many years, and I’ve noticed certain similar stages along the way that most planters face. For the next few weeks on my blog, I’ve decided to walk church planters through essential area they need to think through as they plan and launch a new church.

These 12 areas are roughly in chronological order, although– as any ministry leader knows– things seldom take the clear, linear route that we expect. For that reason, you’ll likely need to go back and forth between areas, revisiting some as needed. Essentially, what I’ll be posting here is a model-neutral set of cliff notes to walk you through the essentials of starting a new church.

After the series is complete, you can do a search on my blog for “church planting series” and all the relevant entries should come up. For those of you who like to plan ahead, these are the 12 areas I’ll be addressing in upcoming weeks:

1. Birth vision out of prayer
2. Mobilize an initial leadership team
3. Confirm spiritual and relational health
4. Understand your target group
5. Serve and reach unbelievers
6. Train and multiply disciples
7. Multiply missional communities
8. Determine action plans for startup
9. Celebrate and worship together
10. Lead and manage as you grow
11. Embrace a kingdom focus
12. Continue multiplication